Voice packet switching systems and methods

• US 20060092927A1
• Filed: 12/09/2005
• Published: 05/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genband US LLC (Ribbon Communications, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Santera Systems LLC
• Inventors: Li, San-Qi, Barnes, Stephen R., Ye, Jingdong
• Granted Patent: US 7,593,415 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6402 Hybrid switching fabrics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5656 using the AAL2
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5667 IP over ATM
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5671 Support of voice
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/606 Hybrid ATM switches, e.g. ATM&STM, ATM&Frame Relay or ATM&IP

Abstract

A switching system includes at least one packet processing circuit interfacing with at least one packet transmission link. The switching system further includes a switch fabric coupled to the at least one packet processing circuit, whereby the switch fabric is operable to switch between channels receiving and transmitting data over the at least one packet transmission link and channels receiving and transmitting data over at least one non-packet transmission link interfaced by the switch fabric.

Claims

1. A dual switching matrix fabric, comprising:

a packet switch fabric configured to receive packet traffic from a plurality of packet transmission links; and

a TDM switch fabric configured to receive TDM traffic from a plurality of TDM transmission links;

wherein the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric are collectively operable to perform switching between the packet and TDM transmission links.

2. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein the TDM switch fabric is a time slot interchange.

3. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein at least one of the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric is operable for DS0-level switching.

4. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein at least one of the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric is operable for per-voice-channel-level switching.

5. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric are collectively operable for DS0-level switching of:

data frames of the packet traffic received from the packet transmission links; and

multiplexed PCM data of the TDM traffic received from the TDM transmission links.

6. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein the packet switch fabric is operable to switch variable length packets.

7. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein the plurality of packet transmission links includes a plurality of ATM cell transmission links and a plurality of VoIP packet transmission links, wherein the packet switch fabric is configured to receive ATM cell traffic from the ATM cell transmission links and VoIP packet traffic from the VoIP packet transmission links, and wherein the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric are collectively operable to perform switching between the ATM cell transmission links, the VoIP packet transmission links, and the TDM traffic transmission links.

8. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 wherein the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric are collectively configured to be operable as a switching system of:

a PSTN network switching element; and

a network gateway bridging a PSTN network and a packet-based network.

9. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 8 wherein the switching system is deployed as the PSTN network switching element or the network gateway.

10. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 further comprising means for interfacing between the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric, including:

means for converting packet traffic into generic-format traffic for switching by the TDM switch fabric; and

means for converting generic-format traffic into packet traffic.

11. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 10 wherein the generic-format traffic comprises frame-encapsulated packet data in which frame headers and trailers include control information.

12. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 10 wherein the generic-format traffic substantially conforms to a standard high-level data link control (HDLC) protocol.

13. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 12 wherein the standard HDLC protocol is a standard protocol for point-to-point communications and point-to-multipoint communications.

14. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 12 wherein the standard HDLC protocol is selected from the group consisting of:

frame relay protocol;

link access procedure-balanced (LAP-B) protocol;

link access procedure-data channel (LAP-DC) protocol;

point-to-point protocol (PPP) protocol; and

synchronous data link control (SDLC) protocol.

15. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 12 wherein the standard HDLC protocol is configured for acceptance of variable-length voice mini-packets, a total bandwidth not greater than 64 Kbps, and error detection and recovery capabilities.

16. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 further comprising at least one service module operable to perform interfacing between the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric.

17. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 16 wherein the at least one service module is operable to perform packet processing, including voice compression and echo cancellation.

18. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 16 wherein the at least one service module is a plurality of service modules, including:

a first service module operable to perform interfacing between the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric for VoIP traffic;

a second service module operable to perform interfacing between the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric for AAL1 traffic; and

a third service module operable to perform interfacing between the packet switch fabric and the TDM switch fabric for AAL2 traffic.

19. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of packet network interface controllers, wherein the packet switch fabric is configured to receive packet traffic from each of the packet transmission links via a corresponding one of the packet network interface controllers.

20. The dual switching matrix fabric of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of TDM network interface controllers, wherein the TDM switch fabric is configured to receive TDM traffic from each of the TDM transmission links via a corresponding one of the TDM network interface controllers.